An Immigration 'Game Changer'? Not Exactly

The Foundation

“The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.” –George Washington

Government

“It’s been called a both a ‘game changer’ and a major ‘breakthrough’ for the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration bill (S. 744). In reality, however, the Corker-Hoeven amendment … is far from a magic solution to our nation’s border security challenges. … [J]ust like in the language of the bill, none of the border security measures in the Corker-Hoeven amendment have to be in place until illegal immigrants with registered provisional immigrant status are to receive green cards 10 years down the road. In other words, the amendment would allow millions of illegal immigrants to receive amnesty now, and then maybe we will get to securing the border somewhere down the road. … Importantly, the amendment still does little to actually stop those who become illegal immigrants by overstaying their visas. … The Corker-Hoeven amendment promises a new entry/exit system to track visa overstays, but that’s all it is: a promise that may or may not be implemented. Beyond that, even if the system were implemented, it doesn’t provide enough actionable information for law enforcement to actually do something about overstays.” –Heritage Foundation’s Jessica Zuckerman and David Inserra

Political Futures

“Although amnesty remains deeply unpopular among the American public at large, the activist Left wants the estimated 11 million illegal aliens present in the U.S. to be processed because they see them as future Democratic voters. In addition, many labor unions, such as SEIU … see today’s illegals as future union members. Business lobbies favor amnesty because they crave the cheap, largely unskilled labor. … The radicals' goal is to use immigration to subvert the American system, just as it has been since the 1960s when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy shepherded reform of that era’s immigration laws through Congress. The concept is simple: Flood America with people who don’t share Americans' traditional philosophical commitment to the rule of law, limited government, and markets, in order to force changes in society.” –columnist Matthew Vadum

Insight

“The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic.” –Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)

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Opinion in Brief

“The president talks of moving beyond ‘Cold War postures,’ but by focusing on nuclear arsenals, he seems to be the one in a time warp. Is he longing to revisit or even rewrite the history of the Cold War? Does he wish he could have been in Reagan’s place at Reykjavik? … [T]he idea of setting a good example for the other nuclear powers is sheer childishness. Will Pakistan, India or, God help us, North Korea, be moved by our example? Were they in 2010, the last time Obama reduced our arsenal? This kind of thinking is unworthy of the leader of a great nation and frankly, a little frightening. It’s also worrying that Obama has proved such a terrible judge of character. Bad enough that he alienated Netanyahu and embraced Erdogan. He continues to portray the thuggish Vladimir Putin as a worthy partner. … Putin has shown contempt for the naive Obama. Last month, Putin kept Secretary of State John Kerry waiting for three hours when Kerry visited to ask his cooperation on Syria. After the meeting, Russia announced that it was sending Assad the S-300 air defense missile system. World leadership is not for beginners. It requires something beyond tabloid celebrity and dorm room musings.” –columnist Mona Charen

For the Record

“The FISA court is not, as Obama implies, an innovation of his administration. It was set up in 1978, when Obama was still a member in good standing of the Choom Gang. … The NSA effort was brought under the FISA court’s jurisdiction no later than Jan. 17, 2007, by which point Obama was a celebrity, but Dick Cheney was still vice president and would be for more than two more years. The real problem here, though, is not the president’s casual attitude toward the facts but his relentless partisan hostility. What does he hope to accomplish by asserting that he’s no Dick Cheney? The obvious political answer is that it is an appeal to people for whom Cheney is a demon figure – that is, the Democratic base. … Obama’s message to Democratic partisans is that they were right to distrust the government when Cheney and George W. Bush were in the White House, but they should trust it now that he is. … Obama would do well to remember that he is, temporarily, the president of all America. ‘I’m not Dick Cheney’ may be a suitable message for a presidential candidate, but a president’s attitude should be more along the lines of ‘We’re all Dick Cheney now.’” –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

Re: The Left

“According to a Wall Street Journal op-ed (9/7/2009) by Manhattan Institute’s energy expert Robert Bryce, Exxon Mobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with its pollutants. The company paid $600,000 in fines and fees. A recent Associated Press story (5/14/2013) reported that ‘more than 573,000 birds are killed by the country’s wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.’ The Obama administration has never fined or prosecuted windmill farms, sometimes called bird Cuisinarts, for killing eagles and other protected bird species. … It’s interesting that The Associated Press chose to report the story only after the news about its reporters being secretly investigated. That caused the Obama administration to fall a bit out of favor with them. But what the heck, the 14th Amendment’s requirement of ‘equal protection’ before the law for everybody can be cast aside in the name of diversity, so why can’t it be cast aside in the name of saving the planet?” –economist Walter E. Williams

The Gipper

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.” –Ronald Reagan

Essential Liberty

“[T]he beauty of the American Constitution is that it predates automobiles and many other modern conveniences. Today’s governing documents read like a laundry list of ‘rights’ the government is required to ‘give’ to you. South Africa’s constitution guarantees a ‘right’ to ‘adequate housing,’ ‘reproductive health care,’ and ‘to receive education in the official language or languages of their choice in public educational institutions where that education is reasonably practicable.’ In contrast, our Constitution simply sets out a framework for a free people to confront the political questions of their times. … It would be impossible to write a limited constitution today. Every interest group under the sun would demand ‘rights’ be included, and it would end up reading like a menu instead of a governing framework. All the more reason to avoid following the crowd of countries that are constantly reworking their constitutions and instead rededicate ourselves to defending the one we’re blessed enough to have.” –Heritage Foundation’s Rich Tucker

Faith and Family

“The reality is, Americans ‘cling to their religion,’ as President Obama so rudely put it, because true faith draws us together. There are real theological differences, but as we’ve witnessed from the health care, abortion, and marriage debates, the greater gulf is between those who are orthodox Christians and those who aren’t. That’s why the Left’s attempt to pit red vs. blue, successful vs. poor, parent vs. child has so spectacularly backfired. In driving this anti-faith, anti-value, pro-government agenda, President Obama has done a lot to bring Catholics and Protestants together. Our shared outrage over the contraception-abortion mandate, the redefinition of marriage, religious hostility, and taxpayer-funded abortion has helped to strengthen ecclesiastical bonds. Years from now, history may record that, in fact, President Obama was a unifier – the accidental unifier of Catholics and Protestants who came together to defend moral truth.” –Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins

Culture

“One of the reasons he ran for re-election, Mr. Obama told Barbara Walters, was so he could have ‘men with guns around’ as his daughters entered their teen years. … We need to focus on that comment now, especially in light of his bromides about fathers in his Father’s Day message. … [H]e said ‘there is no substitute for fathers.’ But in the same proclamation, he takes it back, asserting that two moms will substitute nicely for a father in the home. … Over … Father’s Day weekend [in Chicago], seven were killed and 41 wounded in a wave of shootings. We don’t yet know, but we can readily surmise, that most of those shooting and most of those shot were fatherless young men. … It is a tragedy of historic proportions that under the presidency of Barack Obama, marriage, fatherhood, and family security are being dealt lethal blows. Last year, the Obama campaign even created ‘Julia,’ a young woman living an ideal American life – devoid of marriage and with no male present. Despite kind words for dads in forgettable proclamations, the policy of the Obama administration reflects the views of sixties radicals: ‘A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.’ Try telling that to the victims on the South Side of Chicago.” –columnist Ken Blackwell

Reader Comments

“After reading Mark Alexander’s Living Rich and Famous, Obama Style I’m forced to conclude that the Obamas are the most greedy, arrogant, self-centered and unethical first couple in America’s history. They certainly do not have a functional degree of humility, integrity or social conscience.” –Tyrone in Dayton, Ohio

“What makes the Obamas' vacations even more offensive is that they know how expensive their travels are and they don’t care. Sequester is only for the peons.” –Kathy in Texas

“Once again Mark Alexander nailed it when it comes to the excesses of our Imperial President and his family. At this point, maybe we should cut the BS and just call the rulers what they are – the Emperor and Empress of the USA and the Royal Family. There is absolutely no difference between the Obama lifestyle and attitudes and the kings and dictators of old Europe that caused our Founders to hop a boat and come to America in the hope of starting a new form of government.” –Patty in Putnam County, New York

“It is difficult to read something like this without wondering if this is still that same Land of the Free and Home of the Brave I fought for in World War II. It looks like the Obama family has determined to stick it to the American public for all it’s worth. I remember when I was proud of my Country.” –Robert in Cleveland, Ohio

The Last Word

Editor’s Note: The following is satire:

“President Obama, in a press release this morning, revealed that he was ‘surprised’ to discover that he has apparently been married for quite some time. ‘The first I heard of it was when I saw a CNN report on my wife … uh … "Michelle,” apparently … delivering an address to the National Coalition of Lobster Producers,’ said the President. … Presidential spokesperson Jay Carney was quick to point out that there are several layers of bureaucracy in any marriage, and that nobody on the White House Staff was aware of the marriage until CNN broke the story on March 22, 2013. Evidence suggests that the marriage has been an on-going situation, as the President has also learned that he has two children, although their names, genders, and exact ages were not provided in the press briefing. ‘I think it important to note,’ Carney told reporters, ‘that at least one and possibly both of these children were already in place at the time the previous administration occupied the White House.’ It is possible that one or perhaps both were conceived during a Republican administration, or when there was a Republican majority in Congress. New reports of this heretofore unknown First Lady have been surfacing, including some disturbing allegations of lavish spending on travel and accommodations over the past four years. When questioned by reporters on the subject, Carney replied that while ‘such wild allegations were inevitable in an era of Republican overreach,’ the President himself rarely accompanied the First Lady and had thus been completely unaware of any travel, if indeed any travel had taken place. The Justice Department has announced it will be investigating possible leaks related to the revelation of the First Lady’s existence on CNN. As a part of this investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder has obtained a warrant for all Fox News emails for the past 96 months.“ –The People’s Cube author "Ivan Betinov”